


i am the only me i have ever known

by mayday0329



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 15:51:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19176496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayday0329/pseuds/mayday0329
Summary: "what if i had never met you?"





	i am the only me i have ever known

**Author's Note:**

> during the war — before their deaths. if troy had been a little more weak and took longer to destory the greek's defences. for a strange reason, i vehemently hate paris (but he doesn't show up in this)

 

> i could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; i would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. i would know him in death, at the end of the world.

* * *

 i sink on the sheets next to achilles, sweat sticky and warm. he turns on his back to face me, and even in the dark i picture his face crystal clear, every feature silhouetted by the risen moon. his eyes half-closed and his chest moving with every heavy-laden breath.

 

 there is not much progress with the war. still the trojan forces charge at us; still ours fight back, albeit much more weakened by the absence of achilles and the myrmidon soldiers. i cannot help but feel awkward with my hands, like i must do something. when i look at the medical tents...

 

 "patroclus."

 

 my name on achilles' lips. i look to my right to see the _a_ ** _ristos achaion_  very close on the bed, the bed we share together. his hair is a mess. out of the corner of my eye, i glimpse his armour, lying at a side in the hut.**

 

 "achilles," i say in return, and he kisses my forehead, slightly off to the right. his lips are cool and i feel his breath reflected off my skin.

 

 he is demanding, tonight. "what are you thinking about?"

 

 on normal occasions i don't tell him what i am thinking. it's not a display of mistrust or that i am hiding something from him. "i'm thinking about what if i had never met you."

 

 achilles breathes out, a gentle sway of moonlight and even though it's so hot i can almost see his breath in the air. another thing to separate him from most men. i breathe out unconsciously and remind myself,  _i am most men. i am not him._

 

"that's easy." he uses a toe to touch my calf, hooks his ankle through the crook of my knee so i am pulled closer to him. a piece of scrap metal to the most powerful magnet in greece. "the you that hadn't met me yet, would meet the me who hadn't met you."

 

 "that is a play on words and it is fallible." i am ~~reverent enough~~ (in love enough) mature enough to not roll my eyes at him, but he can hear it in my voice. "i am serious — what if i had never met you?"

 

 it is not that i have not thought of this before. it is just much too strange to wonder about, a question i would not ask if the atmosphere was not right. i do not know if the atmosphere is right now — all i know is the hand down my spine, and achilles' eyes.

 

 "i suppose it would be very lonely." he conceeds gently, the air of a king giving into a nagging advisor. but yet it isn't, because this is achilles, and he has never talked to me that way before. "and boring."

 

 maybe. 

 

 and maybe, if i hadn't met achilles, maybe i would have married briseis. maybe i would have had children. maybe i wouldn't have had lain here, in this cabin, for close to eight years, breathing in war and blood and bandages with sharp knives, and wails.

 

 achilles brings me back with another kiss and a hand on my wrist. he is half-conscious and i let him fall asleep. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 but if i had not met achilles i would not have met briseis at all. if i had not met achilles i would still be an exile, or in peleus' castle doing goodness-knows-what. like achilles said, something boring, probably. i would not have known wind and sun and ripples skidding through water excitedly, his laugh in my ears. a figure would not be permanently etched into my mind, a figure running and fighting and loving. i would not have known anything.

 

 if they hadn't met, the patroclus who hadn't met achilles would meet that achilles in different ways. maybe not as a soldier, maybe not as the _aristos achaion_. he would try, and try, and try, and he would meet achilles who would try along with him.

* * *

 

>   _"name one hero who was happy. you can't."_
> 
> _"i can't."_
> 
> _"i know. they never let you be famous and happy. I'll tell you a secret."_
> 
> _"tell me."_
> 
> _"i'm going to be the first. swear it."_
> 
> _"why me?"_
> 
> _"because you're the reason. swear it."_

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading.


End file.
